User blog:Deadcoder/Deadcoder's Reviews: Lost at Sea
Thanks to some personal matters, this week has been extremely depressing for me. Consequently, so I felt like watching something depressing. And what could be better than one of the most depressing episodes of Code Lyoko, a show that routinely shows a 12 year old committing suicide? This episode will be graded from 0 to 10, where 10 would be David Carayon promising to retire, and 0 being the same from Sophie Decroisette. =The Review= The titlecard says we have some guest writers, which means the episode will be interesting filler "because the guest writers generally made the interesting episodes that weren't Laurent Turner, and only Bruno Regeste and Sophie Decroisette were allowed to actually work on the plot", and we have Paul Beneteau and Alain le Dong working as storyboarders, which means the episode will at least be well animated. So we're off to a good start. We are then disappointed to see the old "keyboard face" gag. This was funny in the 90s, when it was used in Dilbert. Now, it's just annoying. We then get someone coming to Ulrich for advice, because that hasn't been done to death, and we also get the hiroki shipping gag. And we find out that he sucks at conversation, and overall, blech. We then get a cafeteria scene, where Ulrich reminds us of the whole thing. MINUS ONE POINT FOR REPEATING THE SAME SCENE WHEN IT WAS DERIVATIVE CRAP THE FIRST TIME! Jeremie then explains the tech that he has created this week that will fail "because that totally isn't uncreative". We then see Hiroki steal Yumi's notebook, collide with Odd, loose it to Odd and Ulrich, and continue with Yumi chasing him. Continuing the parade of tired writing, Hiroki makes the classic mistake: he thinks he lost his chaser in the woods, and looks behind him. Anyone who has watched any post-60s horror movie knows that he will instantly die. Because this episode is so far, the cinematic equivalent of a paint by numbers kit, Yumi catches him. At the same time, Ulrich looks inside, and finds out that Yumi is a stalker. Ehh, at least it's interesting. In the next act, Ulrich tries to return the diary to Yumi, but Jeremie interrupts the tired B plot to get the A plot moving. Yumi says that infamous line "until you find it, you can consider yourself an only child". Ulrich then inflates the idiotic B plot, by having odd hide the diary instead of just giving it to Hiroki to give to Yumi. Further inflating this, Hiroki finds the cover, but not the book, and Yumi shows up at a bad time. The Lyoko Warriors use a commercial break to escape from the B plot to the factory. The season 2 virtualization music takes them to Carthage, and Ulrich and Odd bicker because they were both idiots. They then take the recycled footage mobile to the Digital Sea. The thing Jeremie made malfunctions because this episode is devoid of creativity. They abort the mission and turn around, and the digital sea has its time of the month, and turns red. All of the Kongres are killed, but Yumi disappears. Because it's totally a great idea to have Yumi as the victim of the week, again. They figure out she's still alive, because they didn't detect her navskid getting destroyed. But they need to repair the skid, so they abandon her, and go back to drydock. For once, Aelita is actually sane and useful. She works with Jeremie to fix the Skid, again, as part of a minor C plot. Back in the sea, we get a horrifying monologue from Yumi, as she drifts in the digital sea. And we watch as the sea grows darker, as she drifts in the damaged nav skid. Plus one point for a fabulous scene of despair! Back in the B plot, they find the diary pages. We return to the part of the episode that's actually interesting, and Yumi is drifting. She's scared, and has only one torpedo left. A kongre shows up, and she doesn't even have the power to fire a torpedo. She diverts power from her shields and fires the last torpedo. Aelita and Jeremie pick it up and start a phone tree scene. Yumi has flashbacks in sepia from time with Hiroki. In the present, she hears a shot, and transition away. That's some good horror. In the lab, they deduce her location from the torpedo, and launch the rescue. They figure out how they lost her. They all know how dangerous the mission is without the sonar. And this time, they all encounter the Aelita options! :0. Act suicidal and/or crazy. :1. Attack it with a long single note of angry music. :2. Have an argument with it. :3. Use Energy Fields. Yumi is their friend, so they choose option 0. We watch as yumi flees more monsters, losing power along the way, she collides with something, and is severely damaged. She looks her death by kongre in the eyes. She says "It's all over, what's he waiting for". If you look closely, the kongre shakes his head "no", and looks to William. I do love that subtle piece of despair. William launches the torpedoes, and Yumi waits for her death. Aelita does what she calls "the tower routine", and shows up just in time. Ulrich and Odd fight the kongre and William in a decent fight scene. Ulrich kills him, again. The shot of the Rorkal getting destroyed is pretty. Jeremie is happy they're returning, with Aelita sad that they don't have William. The episode then ends on a high note. We found out that Ulrich broke into a house! He returns the diary, Yumi forgives Hiroki, and Ulrich walks away under the Cherry Blossoms. CUE CREDITS! Review Summary This episode has bad writing and good animation. All of the 2D stuff has smooth transitions. The scenes of Yumi in the digital sea are elegantly full of despair. The ending scene is well animated. The writing is crap though. The first 5 minutes are devoid of anything resembling substance. The concept is good for this episode, but the pacing is bad. We waste over half the episode with the B plot. I'd gladly get rid of 30 seconds of the diary plot, in exchange for more scenes of despair in the digital sea. The C plot is almost non-existent, despite having the most potential. Why isn't Jeremie near tears, knowing that his mistake may have killed a friend? Why isn't Aelita having to be the one saving Jeremie from Suicide, to reverse the usual situation of their relationship? Why isn't Aelita in the skid, panicking about getting it working again? The answers to these questions is "We didn't have time, because we blew too much on the B plot". So to keep score, the episode's A plot is great and could use more, the B plot is bloated and half caused by the stupidity of the characters, and the C plot is non-existent, despite having the most potential; and the animation is good. Overall, I'm going to give this episode 5/10. It has excellent animation and a good A plot. However, the B plot is bloated and half crap, and the episode wastes potential. If anything, this episode is a microcosm of season 4: good animation, good concepts, bloated filler, and wasted potential. I'm surprised I didn't see Bruno Regeste's name in the titlecard. On a more serious unrelated note; I would like to thank all of my readers for enjoying my reviews. I would like to ask for a minor form of appreciation. I'm not making a Patreon account. Instead, I would like to ask all of you to, by lawful means only, set aside some money for a medical research group, the Foregen Organization: foregen.org. Foregen is working on researching regenerative medicine for victims of a specific type of non-consensual plastic surgery, that I can't mention on this blog, because of wiki content rules. However, this is a charity that is worthy of help, and I would like you all to try. In leu of donations to support Deadcoder's Reviews, I would like all of my viewers to donate some money to Foregen to aid medical research. Thank you all again for enjoying this review, and I hope it made you think about something. Category:Blog posts Category:Lost At Sea